To:N. Y. VILONOV

Published:First published in 1930.

      Sent from Paris to Davos (Switzerland).

      Printed from the original.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1974,

      Moscow,Volume 34,

      pages417-418.Translated:Clemens DuttTranscription\Markup:D. MorosPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2005).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.

April 7, 1910

DearComrade M.,

Iam sending you the resolution of our local Plekhanovites, or, rather, the
pro-Party
Mensheviks.[1]If it is true that with you in Davos the
pro-Party elements preponderate among the Mensheviks, it is extremely important
that they should respond immediately, rally together one way or another and
come out openly. Obviously,Bolsheviksshould be very cautious in
giving such advice to Mensheviks, for even among the Plekhanovites there is no
accusation more terrible, horrible and intolerable than that of “aiding
the Bolsheviks” or of working “for the Bolsheviks”, etc.

Inthe present confused situation there are, in my opinion, only two ways out:
either back to our own Bolshevik faction, or adetermined fighttogether with the Plekhanovites for the Party and against theGolospeople. The second alternative is the more desirable, but, it does not
depend on us. So long as it is possible, we shall do all we can for the
second way out. Only after trying outallpossibilities, all means
for the second way out, shall we return to the first one.

Iam very glad that your acquaintance with pragmatism has begun to turn you
away from Machism. In Russia now they are intensively translating all this
“latest” philosophical muck: Petzoldt and Co., the pragmatists,
etc. This is good: when our people in Russia, especially the Russian workers,
see the teachers of our Bogdanov and Co.,au naturel—they will
quickly turn away from both teachers and pupils.

Toregard truth as an instrument of cognition means, in effect, to go over to
agnosticism, i. e., to abandon materialism. In this and in everything
fundamental, the pragmatists, Machists, empirio-monists are birds of a feather.

Withwarm greetings and wishing you a speedy and lasting recovery.

Yours,N. Lenin

[1]Pro-PartyMensheviks—a small group of Mensheviks headed by
Plekhanov, who broke away from the Menshevik liquidators and came out
against liquidationism in 1908–12. The resolution here referred to was
adopted by the pro-Party Mensheviks(in Paris) on April 4, 1910, concerning the necessity of closing down the
liquidator newspaperGolos Sotsial-Demokratain accordance with
the decsion of the January 1910 Plenum of the C.C. of the R.S.D.L.P.